The present invention relates to tools for attaching and securing disc supports and fluorette sockets to a wall or ceiling of a doll house.
In a doll house, a disc support is attached to a wall or ceiling of the doll house and is used for supporting a ceiling canopy. The ceiling canopy in turn is used to support a miniature chandelier or other light fixture. Examples of such disc supports and interconnecting ceiling canopies are the CK800 and CK800-1 sold by Cir-Kit Concepts, Inc. The disc support is disc shaped and is equipped with two grooves and two imbedded nails which extend from a bottom surface of the disc support. The two nails are used to attach and secure the fixture support to the ceiling and to make an electrical connection with electrical tape which runs along the wall or ceiling of the doll house and is connected to a power supply, such as a step down transformer. After the disc support is attached to the wall or ceiling, the ceiling canopy is connected to the support by placing two pins, which are located inside an open end of the canopy, inside the grooves of the disc support and twisting the ceiling canopy by a quarter turn.
To attach the disc support to the wall or ceiling of the doll house, an installer places the support on the tip of a finger and aligns the nails with the tape run. Next, the nails are pushed into the wall by the force of the installer's finger against the support. However, the walls and ceilings of a doll house are composed of compressed wood. An installer's finger is usually not strong enough and cannot get the appropriate leverage needed to apply a sufficient force to the support such that the nails fully enter the wall and the bottom surface of the socket is flush with the wall or ceiling. This results in the disc supports being loosely attached which frequently causes the supports to fall off the walls or ceilings when the chandelier or other fixture is connected to the support or when bulbs are replaced.
Fluorette sockets which are designed for use with a miniature fluorescent shaped bulb are used as a light fixture in a doll house. An example of such a socket is the CK1019 fluorette socket sold by Cir-Kit Concepts, Inc. The fluorette sockets are rectangular in shape and have a bulb attaching clip at each end to provide for simple bulb installation. Similar to disc supports, fluorette sockets have two imbedded nails in a back surface of the socket and are used to attach it to the wall of the doll house and to make an electrical connection with an electrical tape run.
To attach the fluorette socket to the wall of the doll house, an installer places a finger between the bulb attaching clips, aligns the imbedded nails with the tape run and pushes the socket against the wall. Next, the finger is removed thereby leaving the fluorette socket attached to the wall. However, this method suffers from the same disadvantages as the method used to install disc supports. The installer's finger is usually not strong enough and cannot get the appropriate leverage needed to apply a sufficient force to the socket such that the nails fully enter the wall and the bottom surface of the socket is flush with the wall. This causes the sockets to be loosely attached to the wall and frequently results in sockets falling off the walls when bulbs are replaced.
Thus, there is a need to develop tools that would enable an installer to accurately and securely attach disc supports and fluorette sockets to a wall of a doll house.